Alvin Greene. Perhaps, besides Sharron Angle, Alvin Greene is the most talked about primary winner in the country right now. For those who don't know he beat a Charleston City Council Member, with much more name recognition, in the race for U.S. Senate in the Democratic Primary to run against Republican Jim DeMint in November. Greene, who had been arrested for lewd behavior, and dishonorably discharged from the military, nobody knew, and he didn't have any money or even campaign. Yet Greene won. Strange. How could this be?
Reading his interviews Greene comes across like the Peter Sellers character in
Being There. For those who haven't seen the movie, which includes me, Peter Sellers plays a simple gardener who becomes a celebrity in the political world of Washington, D.C. for all the wrong reasons. For instance, his simple comments about gardening being interpreted as great words of wisdom. However, we could go a step further and compare him to Andy Griffith's character in
A Face in the Crowd, but Greene has hardly amassed any seriousness beyond conspiracy theories.
Why would this man, recently arrested, and having to have a public defender because he couldn't afford a lawyer, just suddenly out of the blue walk in the Democratic Party headquarters in Columbia and deposit a filing fee for candidacy? Furthermore where the hell did this money come from?????
Looking at South Carolina's dirty political gamesmanship, see Nikki Haley's troubles or John McCain's run-in in 2000, one doesn't have to think out-of-the-box about this one. U.S. House majority whip Jim Clyburn believes Greene was set-up to make S.C. Democrats look like idiots. So far this has been true; S.C. Democratic Party chairmwoman Carol Fowler, has announced
her retirement. There has also been speculation about Jim DeMint setting Greene up to ensure a victory in November. If this is true, how would DeMint know if Greene would actually win? Furthermore, how could so many voters, 100,000, vote for this man who didn't even campaign?
In all honesty, when voting in the primary, I don't remember if the two candidates were on my ballot or not. God, did I vote for this man?
In an editorial for
The State, the Rev. Dr. Jones says this:
Mr. Greene won because most voters did not know whom they were voting for in the U.S. Senate race. They were uninformed and unaware, and their ignorance dictatedtheir voting. Many apparently voted for Mr. Greene for no better reason than that his name appeared first on the ballot before Mr. Rawl’s name.
Whenever the people are well-informed,” observed Thomas Jefferson, “they can betrusted with their own government.” When they are not, they vote for candidates like Alvin Greene.
In an
interview with The Guardian, Alvin Greene had this to say about running for senator:
I was hoping that it would be big so I would be able to get my message out to as many folks as possible: getting South Carolina and America back to work,bringing South Carolina and America back. And it's not just America. We have gotto get the world back to work and bring the world back. So it's a message that has to reach folks and it's something that I'm pursuing and it's going good.
Then here is the bombshell:
Another thing we can do for jobs is make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit. They can make toys of me and my vehicle, especially for the holidays and Christmas for the kids. That's something that would create jobs. So you see I think out of the box like that. It's not something a typical person would bring up. That's something that could happen, that makes sense. It's not a joke
Oh. My. God. Well it certainly looks like DeMint will be in for another six years (shit). I think this time I just won't vote in the Senate election. It seems like the only responsible thing for a Democrat to do.
President Garfield getting shot up.
